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6 months ago I got fed up with the spam. Apparently I'd made a few mistakes (the primary one being a "dictionary" address, info@) and my address was being passed around like a cheap . . . bottle of wine. :-)
I changed my email address, went around to every.registered.account and updated them to a new one (this is a phenomenal task), informed all my contacts well in advance.
Then I killed the original email.
Silence. Bliss. 6 wonderfully quiet spam-free months floated by, I turned my filter levels down, it was like 1995 again.
I knew it wouldn't last forever, but two weeks ago my stomach turned and I almost lost the morning's coffee when the first one came in. "Get Rich on eBay." It sickened me.
Ah well, it was good while it lasted . . . I spamcopped it. On a regular basis, 3 a day floated in. Spamcop. Over and over. Every day for a week . . . . .au , .it, .ru servers . . . I began to settle in to the old routine, open, show headers, forward, delete . . . open, show headers, forward, delete . . .
Then it stopped. I haven't seen a new one for a week now. Am I being too hopeful, did it work?
Did spamcop'ing these bozos actually do something positive? Or are they just gathering forces to bomb me with the mother lode of all spam bombs?
I have long since given up reporting and just cranked up the setting on the filters supplied by my email provider and set it to auto delete. Once a quarter I send the spam to a folder for a couple of weeks, just to look for false positives. (The once a quarter bit makes sense as the addresses are for a quarterly publication)
The gmail filters are very good and also easy to access to check, You use a combination of what they class as spam, plus what you as "mark this as spam"
The question is really the effectiveness of the spamcop service.
In the past I've spamcop'ed to not avail, seemed like a waste of time. But with a clean no-spam account, it looks like it does have a positive effect and it works.
There are currently only two points at which my email address is "revealed": by replying to valid clients, who sometimes forward "joke" emails and include everyone in their address book list (or by virus/malware as piatkow mentioned,) and via domain registration, because I consider open business contact information more important than private registration to avoid spam. (for various reasons, I know the latter as the point of entry for the recent inception.)
All my contact forms are secure, and the submittor copy comes from a no-reply address, so they aren't getting it that way.
I do not use filters or forwarding to gmail to any extent because I have lost too many important contacts in the past, and prefer (when possible!) to always attack a problem at it's root rather than fixes and workarounds.
No spam for almost a week now, I think it's stopped again.
Has anyone else seen results like this?
The only answer is not to tell people your email address
I have one address I use for all the important stuff, unfortunately I accidentally used it to reply to some nimrod asking for support on registering with my forum who did me the favor of adding me to his "forward all crap" list.
I sent him email to immediately remove it but I'm sitting here waiting for fallout.
The address that I had the original problems with had become so badly compromised that I never noticed any improvement.
Did it work? I guess it's like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it.
Nowadays, I get so few spam e-mails reaching the mail client there's not much to forward on. In fact, I looked and the last submission to spamcop was November, then october, then May and then two in January, all last year. That's only five that somehow got through the barriers.
Is it worth it? I would say, yes, it is, specially if you want to help others that use the system.
Bill, I have never used spamcop. Is it easy to use?
Absolutely.
You have to create an account with the usual methods.
Once done, you log in one time. It will tell you "paste email with full header into or forward to AbDc45673EdRt@..... spamcop.net." After this first login, you can always use this address to forward emails, saving you the login step. It is bound to your account.
The forward option is easiest if you use an offline program.
Before forwarding, display the full header info of the email, then hit forward, forward to the address.
You will receive a response from spamcop with a link in it. Click it. Brings you to site with details . . . scroll to bottom (and read the info the first few times so you know what you're doing . . .) and submit.
Did it work? I guess it's like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it.
LOL . . . well like I said, I never know whether it did or not, because like most people I used to get tons and spamcop'ing them seemed to have no effect. But with a "clean" email address, it looks like it's working.
Two more days go by . . . no spam. Sweet! :-)
I guess more than anything this thread might spread a ray of hope if this is true . . . kill those old emails, start fresh . . . . and do it right this time. :-) Remove the address from your pages, use a no-reply@ for all your forms, never, ever, ever, I mean NEVER, use a mail system autoresponder, educate your customers on how to BCC all their stupid videos and jokes, and spamcop everything that deserves it.
